WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Oblivious

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◈ Murim in my Hometown ◈

Chapter 9: Martial Artist

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The man who had beaten Gusam was a thug named Jang Hodal.

“What? That man is our boy’s uncle? No, absolutely not. I’ve never had a younger brother like that. What nonsense...”

The cloth shop owner paled and frantically waved his hands.

At first, I thought he was trying to deny it now that things had gone wrong, but that was not it.

The cloth shop owner was surnamed Bang. Jang Hodal was a street thug who occasionally came by, picked fights by claiming the clothes he had bought there were defective, and extorted a little money. They were neither family nor close.

Jang Hodal could not openly extort money.

Like most shops in Seochon’s commercial district that did not receive protection from Yongcheon Escort Agency, the cloth shop paid monthly tribute to the Black Night Gang.

No one liked an unrelated bastard sticking a spoon into their rice bowl. Those of the Black Path liked it even less.

Jang Hodal did not have the nerve to offend the Black Night Gang and wind up stabbed to death while pissing in a back alley of Seochon’s entertainment district.

So he had licked his lips and waited for an opportunity. Then, unexpectedly, he found one.

When he heard that the cloth shop owner’s eldest son had come home after being beaten, he offered to take revenge for him.

It did no good when they refused, saying it was fine and asking why he had to interfere in a children’s fight.

Jang Hodal immediately rushed to Pungcheon Inn and gave Gusam a thorough beating.

Then he returned to the cloth shop and demanded silver as payment for his trouble.

Having extorted the money, Jang Hodal strutted around as though he had saved their lives.

I could guarantee that a man like that would never stop at once. From now on, he would come to the cloth shop whenever the thought struck him and hold out his hand like a creditor.

The cloth shop owner seemed to know that as well. He readily gave me the man’s name and the gambling den he frequented.

He did not seem to be lying.

I would know once I met him.

As I stepped away from beneath the eaves, the cloth shop owner urgently called out to me.

“Excuse me, Great Hero...”

When I turned around, he cautiously asked while watching my reaction.

“Is Gusam badly hurt?”

His wet face in the dim lamplight and his careful voice made his worry plain.

I watched him for a moment, then silently walked into the rain.

The back alley Gusam had once led me through was dark and desolate.

The rain had grown heavier and obscured my view, but finding the gambling den was easy.

It was the only large building among the lit establishments guarded by burly men with swords at their waists.

Even on a rainy night, it was extremely lively.

I looked over the taverns open here and there, then entered one a suitable distance away.

There were no empty seats in the small tavern.

The faces of those sitting around drinking aimlessly all looked either slack or menacing. They were the common sort of criminals in the martial world who looked as though a mask would turn up if you searched their clothes.

Quite a few of them smelled of blood.

At a window overlooking the gambling den, a middle-aged martial artist sat alone, glaring at an empty cup.

At first glance, he seemed lost in deep thought. Or perhaps he wanted another drink but had no money.

“May I join you?”

The middle-aged man raised his head. His gaze as he looked up at me was slightly unfocused.

It was not from intoxication. His eyes quickly focused and flashed sharply. He was not drunk at all.

It seemed he had been staring at somewhere far away, somewhere he could never return to. Then again, it was the perfect night to dwell on a bitter past. Restless and dreary...

Before he could reach for the longsword leaning beside him, I quickly continued.

“There are no seats. I’ll buy you a drink in return.”

He looked down at his empty cup and nodded.

“Let us do that.”

I removed my bamboo rain hat and oilskin coat, setting them aside. I also unfastened my long saber and called over a server to order some suitable liquor and snacks.

As I picked up the bottle, an idiot who had been swallowing his saliva and hoping to mooch off us approached.

The middle-aged man glared and barked at him.

“Get lost.”

The thick killing intent made the idiot flinch and retreat.

I had lived by the blade myself, but this middle-aged man also seemed to have dragged his life this far by getting covered in other people’s blood. His presence was terrifying.

Yet his face was not especially fierce. There was no hint of pettiness or treachery either.

There were occasionally swordsmen like this. Gentle killers who had somehow fallen into this life but seemed fundamentally different from ordinary street trash.

Still, he was only a martial artist who would draw his blade if things went wrong. Asking politely for understanding before stabbing someone did not make the blade hurt any less.

I imagined how I would deal with him if we fought.

He was a swordsman I had met for the first time today. I had neither reason nor intention to fight him, but someday, one might arise.

There had actually been several times like that. I had shared a table with someone by chance and become fairly friendly, only for us to have to kill each other not long after.

To stay even a little farther from King Yama, I always had to consider and prepare for every remote possibility.

I would go to hell someday, but there was nothing good about getting there in a hurry.

Perhaps he truly had run out of liquor. The middle-aged man freely drained a cup. When I refilled it, he finally gave an embarrassed smile.

“I have accepted your drink without even exchanging names. I am Won Seogang.”

“I’m Jeong.”

“Great Hero Jeong. On such a foul night, are you returning from somewhere pleasant?”

“Who knows?”

I trailed off and looked out the window. Amid the pitch-black darkness, the gambling den prospered as though its lights would never go out.

Won Seogang gave a faint smile, as if he understood.

“Planning to play gambling tiles?”

“Is that a gambling den?”

“I hear it is the largest gambling-tile den in Seochon. The Black Night Gang runs it, so you needn’t worry about winning money and being unable to take it with you.”

“Are there gambling dens where you cannot collect your winnings? The trouble comes after you leave.”

Won Seogang looked around the tavern following my gaze and chuckled.

“Heh heh, that is true.”

The criminals gathered here had not all come merely to drink idly. Their dark intentions in taking seats with a clear view of the gambling den were obvious.

No matter how hard they tried to hide it, people who left after winning money showed it on their faces.

Quietly following them, stabbing them in the back, and stealing their coin pouches was a common occurrence in every city of the Central Plains.

A rainy night like this was perfect for concealing evidence.

The burly guards only kept order inside the gambling den. They paid no attention at all to what happened outside.

There was nothing in this world more likely to earn someone’s resentment than winning money at a gambling den.

Those who lost their money sometimes followed behind with weapons in hand. If the sum was large enough, the gambling den might even hire assassins.

It had been the same at the last table I ever sat at.

I had handed out generous tips, yet before I even left the alley, sword-wielding bastards had surrounded me from both sides.

I did not want to cause that sort of trouble after returning home. That was why I waited outside instead of entering the gambling den.

Even just watching from here made my fingers itch instinctively.

If I got swept up in the atmosphere of life’s losers glaring with bloodshot eyes and getting worked up, I might be tempted to show them a thing or two and ruin everything.

I fiddled with my liquor cup instead of gambling tiles and waited for a long time.

A laborer wearing a straw rain cape pulled a cart past the tavern.

Wondering what he was doing in weather like this, I watched as the cart stopped in front of the gambling den.

When one of the burly guards at the entrance gestured, the laborer pushed his bamboo rain hat back.

A gloomy face was revealed in the light.

Where had I seen him before? He looked familiar. I narrowed my eyes and stared before remembering.

It was the man from the mountain on the first day I returned home. Surrounded by sword-carrying villains, he had trembled while digging the place where he would be buried.

Since he was still alive, it seemed the digging had indeed only been meant as a threat.

After carrying several jars of liquor into the gambling den, the man pulled his cart away beyond the alley.

Who was he?

I was sure I had seen him when I was young, but I could not remember him at all.

My thoughts did not last long.

Someone came out of the gambling den. This time, too, it was a familiar face.

He stretched out his hand to check the pouring rain, frowned, and cursed loudly. After taking back the broadsword he had entrusted to a burly guard and fastening it at his waist, he walked into the rain toward the far end of the alley.

“I should be going.”

I drained my cup and stood. I fastened my long saber at my waist, put on my oilskin coat, and donned my bamboo rain hat.

“But there’s liquor left.”

“Drink as much as you like.”

“Next time, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Let us do that.”

Since I had paid when the liquor arrived, Won Seogang did not stop me.

When I stepped into the night street, which felt like the belly of a whale, thick rain beat against my entire body.

It was late spring, with summer not far away, but it was cold enough to make me shiver. The warmth liquor had given my body quickly faded.

Even wearing an oilskin coat, rain like this slowly wore away at one’s body heat and strength. I had to finish quickly and return home.

I hurried my steps, turning my head to watch behind me and around me. The loud rain suitably concealed my footsteps.

As I watched Jang Hodal’s back while he avoided puddles, I recalled what the innkeeper had told me.

The innkeeper had not described Jang Hodal’s appearance at length.

He had only said that I would know his face.

The bandit-like punk who had picked a fight with me at the inn on my first day home, then been knocked flat after a blow to the solar plexus.

That man was Jang Hodal.

According to the cloth shop owner, he had boasted that he would soon join the Black Night Gang.

The Black Night Gang did not accept just anyone as a member. Though they were of the Black Path, they charged a full two taels of silver as an entry fee.

In return, once someone belonged to the Black Night Gang, they no longer had to worry about making a living. They would no longer get beaten around either.

Jang Hodal often bragged that once he became part of the Black Night Gang, there would be more than one or two people he would put in their place.

But this time, perhaps he truly meant to join. He had desperately gone around looking for money. That was why he had so disgracefully interfered in a children’s fight.

It turned out that this involved me as well. After receiving a thorough beating at the inn before, he had gone around in a rage, saying he would tear me to pieces.

What would happen if that bastard entered the Black Night Gang’s shadow? He would search for my home alongside the Black Night Gang’s killers.

Perhaps he already knew.

If I had struck his solar plexus with the blade instead of the scabbard then, none of this would have happened.

Wanting to avoid bloodshed from my very first day back home, I had held back. That decision had made so many people suffer, then come full circle and put a blade to the back of my head.

Even if this were not about Gusam, I had to kill him.

To keep my precious home from being stained with filthy blood, and to avoid clashing with the Black Night Gang.

Breaking one of his legs and making him a cripple would be no better than leaving him alone.

I would kill him. Here.

With the Black Night Gang visible in the distance, Jang Hodal turned left into an alley.

It led to a poor district crowded with ramshackle shacks.

I followed him in, drew my long saber, and rushed forward. The distance closed in an instant.

Only then did Jang Hodal sense someone behind him and turn around. His eyes widened in surprise as he drew his broadsword.

Clang!

He barely managed to block the strike aimed at his face, but that was what I intended.

Using the rebound, I spun my long saber over my head. At the same time, I used Footwork to shift left, cutting long and diagonally across his exposed left side.

Splat!

Foul-smelling blood sprayed from the wound that split open from his chest to his stomach in a single breath.

Covered in blood, I took several steps back in my bamboo rain hat and oilskin coat.

No further attack was necessary. The sensation of the blade cutting through muscle and bone had already told me it was a fatal wound.

Jang Hodal made a bubbling sound in his throat and collapsed where he stood.

He did not die instantly. He coughed hopelessly over the cold rainwater and died quickly. Blood streamed from his body. Even an immortal healer could not have saved him.

I stood in the rain with my long saber lowered and watched.

I could have ended it at once, but I did not want to ease his pain.

Watching an evil man struggle and die amid pain and fear made me feel like a grim reaper.

The desperate coughing stopped. Soon, his breathing stopped as well.

Shhhhhh!

The sound of rain surged through the gap in the silence.

I did not know whether this had paid for all the sins he had committed in his life, but he would commit no more.

I placed my blade against his neck and pushed his shoulder with my foot. He had died with both eyes wide open.

I wiped my long saber, its blood washed away by the rain, against his clothes and returned it to its sheath.

Kneeling on one knee, I searched his clothes.

His expression had not been good when he came out of the gambling den, and as expected, his coin pouch was light.

Urgent footsteps splashing through puddles sounded behind me. I quickly retreated into a side alley and hid in the darkness.

Moonlight faintly filtering through the dark clouds revealed the outlines of two thugs running over with blades in hand.

I did not know whether they had followed from the gambling den or come from the tavern earlier, but they had one purpose.

“Fuck, someone got to him first?”

“I told you we should hurry!”

“Do you know how vicious this bastard is? Do you think the two of us could beat him?”

“Fuck, if I knew this would happen, I should’ve killed him last time...”

“Didn’t we say we’d keep our heads down until he joined the Black Night Gang?”

“That’s because every time this bastard opened his mouth, he bragged about knowing older brothers in the Black Night Gang. He said all he needed was to gather the entry fee...”

“You believed that?”

“Didn’t you?”

Their voices were unfamiliar, but I had seen their faces before.

They were part of the group that had been drinking with Jang Hodal at Pungcheon Inn on my first day home.

The two of them had helped the collapsed Jang Hodal escape after he was struck in the solar plexus. I had thought they were rather loyal then, but had they really been waiting for an opportunity?

“Goddamn it... Strip him, at least.”

The two idiots lacked both the skill and courage to become murderous robbers.

Still, they could not bear to leave empty-handed, so they stripped the corpse of its clothes. They took even his underclothes, shoes, and broadsword before running into the rain.

Jang Hodal lay sprawled naked, just as he had been when he first came into this world.

The blood flowing from his body stretched out long like an umbilical cord before fading into the rainwater. It was a strange sight, like a stillborn fetus.

Heavy rain fell relentlessly upon the worthless naked body that had grown much larger and committed many sins since it had been a helpless baby, striking it like a beating.

The route home through winding alleys was long and dark like a maze.

It was the first murder I had committed since returning to my hometown. I felt neither regret nor guilt. I simply felt dirty.

When I first became a martial artist, I regretted killing people. At some point, I began regretting sparing them more often.

There were too many people in this world who deserved to die, and once such people bore a grudge, they did not forget it.

I was one of those martial artists as well. Someone who deserved to die and never forgot a grudge.

Today, I had killed someone. Someday, I would die.

I had only been gone for a few hours, yet my home felt unfamiliar and lonely, as though it had been abandoned long ago.

I washed my oilskin coat and bamboo rain hat, then hung them beneath the eaves. I tossed my long saber into my room. Even in this pouring rain, the smell of blood still lingered at the tip of my nose.

I took off all my clothes and went into the yard. The thick rain savagely lashed my face and body.

Shivering in the cold that seeped into my bones, I washed my hair, face, and body in the rain.

I lit the brazier and warmed the room, heated myself with hot tea, and crawled beneath the blankets.

My sleep was restless, but I did not have nightmares.

When I awoke the next day, my body felt heavy. My head was hot, and I could not stop coughing. I had come down with a bad cold.

* * *

The rain stopped two days later. Around then, Gusam opened his eyes as well.

Whether because his will to live was strong or because of Physician Seong’s skill, he got out of bed that very day.

A month later, the splint fixing his left arm in place came off as well.

He was not well enough to deliver food, so I went to the inn to eat every evening.

Even after coming back from the brink of death, Gusam was still cheerful and talkative. I was relieved.

Not everything remained the same, though. Whenever I ate at the inn, the neighborhood children came flooding in to look for Gusam.

They had not come to fight. They had come to see their leader.

Gusam had become the new alley boss of Seochon.

Bang Hojin, the former alley boss and cloth shop owner’s son, was condemned as a coward who had tattled to adults after losing a fight.

There were rules even in the children’s world. Especially among boys for whom fistfights were an everyday occurrence, someone who tattled to adults was not treated like a person.

An adult interfering in children’s business was an unforgivable foul. Worse than throwing dirt in someone’s eyes or swinging a weapon.

At a glance, it resembled the principle of noninterference between officials and the martial world, but the children were much stricter.

The idea that officials did not interfere in martial-world affairs meant that they did not care if martial artists killed one another.

In reality, not only major sects such as Wudang and Shaolin Temple, but even the Five Great Families and smaller clans and sects, were connected to the authorities in one way or another.

They continuously placed Lay disciples in government offices and the military, and sometimes secretly received the authorities’ help in checking or eliminating rival sects.

There were no exceptions in the children’s world.

Bang Hojin knew that well. He had not intended it, but the result was that he had tattled, and Gusam had nearly died.

Everyone glared at him with contemptuous eyes. It was Gusam who saved Bang Hojin, unable to lift his head.

He clarified that Bang Hojin was not a cowardly tattletale and cleared up the misunderstanding.

Moved, Bang Hojin wiped away his overflowing tears with his sleeve, pledged his loyalty, and declared himself the leader’s right-hand man.

Food deliveries began again.

I opened the gate at the loud knocking to find Gusam beaming. Bang Hojin stood behind him with his head bowed.

“You came together?”

“Yes. Great Hero, may I teach my right-hand man how to fight?”

“Hmm. Do as you please.”

While I ate, Gusam taught Bang Hojin Footwork and Fist-and-Kick Techniques in the yard.

“No Credit! Drunken Truth! Life Is Fleeting!”

At first, he taught him exactly as he had learned. Later, he began making up move names and moving his body through all sorts of strange stances.

Bang Hojin followed along with a solemn expression, sweating profusely as though it were some secret manual of peerless martial arts.

I had been making pinwheels when I stopped and watched them, feeling strangely moved.

Perhaps that was the martial-world brotherhood I had never felt even once.

I set down my knife and looked up at the sky. It was brilliantly blue. The trees were fresh with green leaves on every branch.

Listening to Gusam rattle off his ridiculous moves, I closed my eyes. A gentle breeze softly brushed my face.

It was a calm and peaceful early summer.

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